The beeper goes off. Who’s it gonna be? Maybe it’s that postediting place in Hollywood. Go into editing some movie night and day. Trash cans get stuffed with pizza boxes and takeout. Toilet paper disappears. Toilets get clogged good with paper towels and shit. Bobby seen ’em clogged with condoms and syringes. Bobby don’t ask no questions. He just comes in twice if they give him the call.
Or maybe it’s the place in El Segundo makes bombs. Gotta haul out the shredded paper. Anybody ask any questions, he’s got a clearance. After everything, they never figured out he’s not Vietnam. Not no orphan with no connections to nothing. Orphan refugee can’t be communist. Gotta be happy he’s alive in America. Saved by the Americans. New country. New life. Working hard to make it. American through and through. Clearance proves it. He can haul out all the shredded documents he can carry. Doing America a favor. Doing his duty. That’s it.
Anybody ask, he’s legal. Casualty of the war. Responsibility of the victor, the aggressor, the big loser. Nowadays, they’re saying you can go back. See the homeland. It’s not a problem. Vietcong’ll let you in. Everything’s cheap in Vietnam. You can live there like a king. Don’t he know? All the Vietnam folks owning donut shops are taking the trip. He don’t say nothing. Pretends he was too little to remember. Too little to remember Saigon. Now it’s a musical. Miss Saigon. Miz Saigon. Don’t you miss Saigon?
Bobby misses Singapore. Only thing people know about Singapore is you can’t do graffiti. Even white kids get flogged. People saying taggers here oughta get flogged too. Flog ’em big-time. Been so long, can’t remember the Singapore they’re talking about. Skyscrapers, rich people, business like it’s never gonna stop. Maybe he shoulda never left; cleaning buildings here, cleaning ’em there. What’s the diff? Well, might be being Chinese in Singapore’s different than being Vietnamese in the U.S.
Somebody says, “What’d we do without you, Bobby? You saving our lives. Without you nothing gets done around here.” It’s an exaggeration. Bobby don’t hold nothing by it. Way of saying, who’s gonna clean up if it isn’t you? Gonna be some other refugee needs the work. Still it’s likely the job doesn’t get done as good. Bobby’s proud of his business, proud of his rep. He disappears, they gotta get along with something less than clean.
What day’s today? The 25th. Insurance on the life due. Bobby bought himself term. Half’s for the wife and son; half’s for his brother. They’re depending on him. It’s a chunk. Not a lot, but a chunk. When he can, he’ll put in for more. Pretty soon he’ll be worth more dead than alive. Dead, he’ll be some kind of lottery. Then again, if he never finds Rafaela and the boy, what’s it gonna matter?
For now, he’s gotta run. Gotta answer the beep. Turns out it’s not Hollywood. Not the war machine in El Segundo neither. It’s Gabriel, the Chicano reporter. Gabriel’s like the li’l bro. Got an education. Like the kid brother, got consciousness about what’s it to be a minority. Required course: cultural politics. Gabriel was reading Rafaela’s papers for the community college. Correcting the spelling. Telling her to keep up the good work. Getting articles out of the system to put in the papers. Putting ideas into Rafaela’s head. Now he’s on the phone, telling Bobby he’s got news about Rafaela. They better talk. Figures. Bobby like to smack him, but he better get Rafaela and the kid back first. Then he’ll smack him.
Gabriel’s saying how about this afternoon? Got a minute to talk? He’s between assignments. Has Bobby seen the mess on the freeway? He’s really busy, but—
Bobby can’t do it. He doesn’t say that he’s got three hundred dollars to the snakehead to check out the girl cousin cross the border. Today. He’s gotta run. Give it to him straight on the phone.
It’s more complicated than that. Gabriel’s gotta draw a map. Why’s he telling Bobby this now?
Because Rafaela wants Bobby to know. At least that’s what he thinks. Because he’s lost contact with her. Because he’s got a lot of things in the works. Someone else’s got to get involved. Because there’s some kind of trouble.
What trouble?
Don’t know.
What’s she mixed up in? Gone down to join the Zapatistas? What about the boy?
Gabriel didn’t think of that.
Didn’t think of that?
No.
What did he think?
Not that.
Didn’t he read her papers? Bobby been reading them at night. Taking the Miraculous Stop Smoking and reading. Pile of them left on a shelf. Titles like Maquiladoras & Migrants. Undocumented, Illegal & Alien: Immigrants vs. Immigration. Talks about globalization of capital. Capitalization of poverty. Internationalization of the labor force. Exploitation and political expediency. Devaluation of currency and foreign economic policy. Economic intervention. Big words like that. Enough to get back smoking again. Maybe he’s been too busy. Maybe. But it’s not like he don’t understand. Prop 187. Keep illegals out of schools and hospitals. They could pass all the propositions they want. People like him and Rafaela weren’t gonna just disappear.
But she did.
Bobby wants to know: How’s she living? She’s gonna need some money.
Don’t worry about that for now.
She’s my family. That’s my son. We don’t live off no one. No one.
Listen. Reporter’s gotta make a business trip to México anyway. He’ll check up on Rafaela, call Bobby soon as he knows something.
Bobby unlocks The Club on the Camaro. Gonna make the ride down to T.J. Been awhile since he done it. Boy’s car seat still in the back. Take him two hours if he’s lucky. 5 to the 805. Pull up to San Ysidro and make the crossover on foot. Same clanging gates. Like you can’t pass quietly. Can’t tiptoe in or out. Indian mommas, Mixtecs, and Mayans and their kids lined up on blankets selling Subcommandante Marcos dolls, Our Lady of Guadalupe, bubble gum, and plastic cactuses. Traffic stopped up like usual. Lines of cars and trucks waiting to jump the border, moving up one at a time. Who knows what’s crossing to the other side? Gifts from NAFTA. Oranges, bananas, corn, lettuce, guaraches, women’s apparel, tennis shoes, radios, electrodomestics, live-in domestics, living domestics, gardeners, dishwashers, waiters, masons, ditch diggers, migrants, pickers, packers, braceros, refugees, centroamericanos, wetbacks, wops, undocumenteds, illegals, aliens.
It’s time. T.J. taxi slows down at his corner. Girl’s Chinese. Just like her picture, but thinner. Scared. She’s staring out the window. Something in her eyes. Maybe if Rafaela could read her palms. . . . It’s not like it’s his sister. It’s like it’s maybe twenty years ago. Like it’s him and his kid brother fresh off the boat. It’s just a glimpse. But it lasts forever. Twenty years goes by in a glimpse.